There is a quiet tap on the door and I leap to my feet, knocking the table and spilling the wine. “Is it now?” I ask. I can feel my heart hammering and I think of the baby, safe and silent in my belly, and his brother just next door. I think that we are the new royal family and they may be bringing me the crown.
Ned crosses the room in three strides and opens the door. The guard is there, another man with him. “A messenger, my lord,” the guard says respectfully. “Said he had to see you.”
“You did right to bring him to me,” Ned says easily. The guard steps back and the messenger comes into the room.
I cannot take my eyes from the scroll in his hand. Perhaps it has the royal seal, perhaps it is the Privy Council informing me of the death of Elizabeth and telling me that they are on their way.
Ned holds out a peremptory hand. The messenger gives him the scroll. It is a short scrawled message. “Says I am to trust you,” Ned says to the man. “What’s the news?”
“The queen has named Robert Dudley.”
“What?” Ned’s exclamation is so loud, his shock is so great, that I hear Teddy wail in the maid’s room and she opens the door and peeps out.
“Nothing! Nothing!” I command, waving her back to the baby. I turn to the messenger. “You must be mistaken. That cannot be.”
“Named him as Protector of the Realm, and the Privy Council have sworn to support him.”
Ned and I exchange incredulous looks.
“It’s not possible,” I whisper.
“What does your master say?” Ned demands.
The man grins. “Says that they won’t argue with a dying woman but that your wife should be ready.” He turns to me and makes the deep bow for a royal. “Says it can’t be long. Nobody would support a Dudley, and nobody will have another Protector. The queen is out of her mind with fever. By naming Robert Dudley, she has given the Privy Council the right to crown who they please. She is beyond reason; they cannot reason with her. Nobody will ever give the crown to him. The queen has denied her own line, she is a traitor to her own throne. Everyone knows it has to be Lady Hertford.” He bows to me again.
Ned nods, thinking fast. “Nothing to be done until the queen has gone, God bless her,” he says. “Any move we make can only be then. We are her loyal subjects as long as she draws breath. We will pray for her recovery.”
“Yes,” the man says. “I’ll get back to Hampton Court and tell my lord that you understand. You’ll hear as soon as there is any more news.”
“We live in extraordinary times,” Ned says, almost to himself. “Times of wonders.”
Of course we cannot sleep. We don’t even lie on the bed together and kiss. We can’t eat. We are both of us incapable of doing anything but walking fretfully around the two rooms and looking out of the window into the dark garden in case there is a torch bobbing towards us. I change my gown so that I look my best when the lords come with the crown. I put a cloth over the linnets so that they go to sleep and don’t sing. The dogs are quiet in their box and I put Mr. Nozzle into his cage. Without a presence chamber, without a court, we are as dignified as we can be. I sit in the one good chair and Ned stands behind me. We cannot stop ourselves posing, like actors in a masque, playing the part of majesty even while the messenger may be riding towards us to tell us that the script is ready, the playacting has become real.
“I will reward the lieutenant of the Tower,” I remark.
“Not a word,” Ned cautions me. “We are praying for the recovery of the queen, God bless her.”
“Yes,” I agree. I wonder if it is wrong to outwardly pray for someone and secretly hope that she dies. I wish I could ask Jane: it is just the sort of thing she would know. But really, how can I want Elizabeth to live, when she has been such an enemy to me, and to my innocent son?
“I am praying for her,” I tell Ned. I think I will pray that she goes directly to heaven, and that there is no purgatory; for if there were, she would never escape.
We hear the first trill of birdsong, loud in our silent room, and then one by one the songbirds start to call for the day. A thrush sings a ripple of song, loud as a flute. I stir in my seat, and see that Ned is looking out of the window. “It’s dawn,” he says. “I have to go.”
“With no message!”
“Any messenger will find me easily enough,” he says wryly. “I’m going nowhere. I will be locked into my cell in the Tower. And if the message comes for you, then they will send for me as soon as they have told you . . .” He trails off. “Remember, if anyone asks, you prayed all night for her health,” he says. “You were here alone.”
“I will say that. And really, I did.” I cross my fingers behind my back on the half lie. “Will you come tomorrow night?”
He takes me in his arms. “Without fail. Without fail, beloved. And I will send you any news that I hear. Send your lady-in-waiting to me at dinnertime and I will whisper to her anything that I have heard from Hampton Court.” He opens the door and then hesitates. “Don’t be misled by gossip,” he says. “Don’t leave your room unless the Privy Council themselves come to you. It would be fatal if you were seen to accept the crown, and then Elizabeth recovered.”
I am so afraid of her that I actually feel a shudder at the thought of making such a mistake and having to face her with a genuine accusation of treason against me. “I won’t! I won’t!” I promise him. I swear to myself that I will never be queen for nine days like my sister. I will be queen for the rest of my life or not at all. I cannot make it happen one way or another. Everything depends on the strength of a sickly woman of nearly thirty years old, fighting one of the most dangerous diseases in the world.
“And pray for her health,” Ned says. “Make sure that people see you praying for her.”
We hear the door below open and the guard whisper hoarsely up the stairs: “My lord?”
“Coming,” Ned replies. He gives me one hungry kiss on the mouth. “Till tonight,” he promises me. “Unless something happens today.”
I have to wait all day. The lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Edward, comes to visit me and finds me on my knees before my Bible. “You will have heard that the queen is sick,” he says.
I get to my feet. “I have been praying for her all day. God bless her and give her strength,” I say.
“God bless her,” he repeats, but his half-hidden glance towards me shows me that we both know that if she slides from unconsciousness into death then there will be a new Queen of England and the little boy in the cradle will be Edward Prince of Wales.
“You may like to walk in the garden,” Sir Edward offers.
I incline my head. “We’ll go now.”
I cannot sit still, and I may not go anywhere. I cannot concentrate on reading and I don’t dare to daydream. “Lucy, bring Teddy’s ball.”
I wait and I wait, starting up every time I hear the challenge from the gatehouse and the big gates creak open, but there is no more news from Hampton Court. Elizabeth is locked in a long silent battle for her life, and the Privy Council are trading favors to choose the heir to the throne. Nobody will consent to Elizabeth’s nomination of Robert Dudley for Protector. Dudley himself—with his own father buried in the Tower in the chapel, beheaded for treason—knows that it cannot be, though I swear that his eager ambition, Dudley ambition, must have leapt up when he first heard of it.